The Temptation of Atë
by Drusilla2
Summary: Jess/Tristan. SLASH. Aha, you're thinking. And you're right. A continuation of Portrait of a Lone Wolf, except in Jess' POV. A possible part two of a series?


TITLE: The Temptation of Atë  
  
AUTHOR: Drusilla -- spikes_pet@canada.com -- http://cityofhellville.com/sweet  
  
RATING: Take your pick. PG-13, or, if you think slash ought to be rated higher than het, R.  
  
PAIRING: Jess/Tristan.  
  
DISCLAIMERS: Unfortunately neither Jess, Tristan, or Rory are mine. But God I wish they were. [grins evilly] And you can guess what I'd do to them if they were...  
  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Don't read until you've read Portrait of a Lone Wolf. Thanks for all the nice reviews for that one. I wouldn't even have thought of writing a sequel (I never do!) except for the seemingly good demand.  
  
  
  
(( THE TEMPTATION OF ATË ))  
  
  
  
Funny how when the glass breaks, it cracks differently every time. I like to do it. I enjoy it. Fling a bottle at a wall and watch how the sides fall onto itself on impact, watch the curves cave in until the cracks are too large for tension to sustain. I like the sight of the million shards of sharp glass cutting raw marks on skin.  
  
  
And the blood is always red.  
  
  
He reminds me of the blood. He reminds me everything that I left to ashes when I closed that door forever. The memory is painful. A blade glistening in the wound, but who's to say I don't like the pain? Instead, I love it. I revel in it, and I have no tears for the past. I never did. I wonder if he ever thought himself as anything. I doubted it. In many senses, we were too much alike. Too identical that it was pathetic. Our world was not their world. Our world held no one but ourselves.  
  
  
The stars held no meaning for us, the night no mystery of which the books so fondly spoke. I can remember my attempts, at first, my desperation in which I searched for the mystery that the others found. I saw glimpses, perhaps. I understood quite well the magic that betrayed itself to them. But I never found my own.  
  
  
*She*, in the end, was and is the only magic ever known to me, in all her innocence and sweet purity, and she was never to be mine. I didn't lament for this. I only understood the cold. It was she who had changed us forever, without ever making a motion. She took us from our worlds, yet never brought us into hers. We were specters, hovering by her, always waiting, always wanting, with no hope of entrance. She captured us both with her heart, without ever taking ours.  
  
  
Our hearts were left for each other.  
  
  
The sun hurt my eyes. I remember that distinctly as I ran away from everything real that I ever knew. It was glaring across the white paint of the road signs and the grayness of the road. I was too tired to care. I was scared. Terror did not grip me as they say so often. Instead it clung to my bones, weary. It crept like worm through me and ran burning across my flesh so that I froze. It was fire and ice, and it was terrible.  
  
  
And I was craving for him, the heat of his touch. He was no lover I had ever known, but then, I had never been intimate with men. I can recall his face at our last meeting. Life was too much for him then, as it had always been. And will forever be. His expression was dead. His face was blank, his eyes hollow, as though nothing left of him resided there.  
  
  
He was tired of everything. I kissed him, loving the taste of him, exploring his mouth with my own. I wrapped myself around him and felt relief when his eyes closed once and opened again to reveal some emotion. Passion, no doubt. I didn't think it more than that. He was going to say something, and I realized finally. I think the world around me began to scream, and my body was shrieking as if in protest. He was saying my name, desperately, urgently, but I couldn't let him finish, you see.   
  
  
I couldn't let him say I love you.  
  
  
I'm not stupid. In many ways we are also different, he and I. I'm no romantic. I entertain no illusions of love and romance, and Prince Charming. Or Sleeping Beauty. Understand, I know what happens when someone says these things, those words of seemingly great importance. They tell you, 'I love you,' and then they're gone. Or perhaps they give you away to a relative you've never met, leaving you to survive in a deadly town. Ah, yes. Deadly in its own right, in its rituals and beliefs.  
  
  
Deadly because of one girl who could crush a heart in a glance.  
  
  
Of course I forgot about her promptly when I was with him. He wasn't like anything I'd experienced before. He was longing. He knew many things, but I hadn't thought love was one of them. We didn't deserve love, was my thought. It was too fragile a thing, too preciously beautiful a gift to receive. We were beings the night sought to destroy. I didn't think such a thing was possible, for two beasts as ourselves, two creatures so far into destruction with a wisp of a girl in between.   
  
  
I didn't believe it until the bus pulled into a rest stop, brakes screeching as if to deafen us, and she was standing there, her face passionate and deadly, waiting for me, and so was he.  
  
  
  
(( END. ))  
  
  
  
  
If you've read this far, you've got to have an opinion. And I'd like to hear it. I don't care if it's a flame, actually. I find those funny. So, you know, review already! If I get enough encouragement I could even make these into a mini-series... 


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